


Tumblr Drabble Session no. 2

by 37h4n0l



Category: 91 Days (Anime)
Genre: M/M, look fam the warnings spoil it, no explicit content though except animal gore which is ordinary of life and nature
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 18:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9561428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/37h4n0l/pseuds/37h4n0l
Summary: Another drabble challenge I'm doing on Tumblr; I'll put the avilero requests in here. Feel free to send me more prompts from this list: http://3-d-g-y.tumblr.com/post/156664666286/drabble-list





	1. "You can lie to yourself, but don't lie to me"

Lies are nasty little creatures; the lazier _what if_ s you decide to make true, the bad solutions in the back of your mind that make your life lighter and your conscience heavier. Angelo had learned to lie at seven, a first temptation, if you will. It was something regarding Luce (he’s painful to think about) and the remains of a bird they had brought home. The poor animal had been likely hit by a car and it was missing a wing. He remembered dragging that small, dead body along a dusty road with two sticks - one in his hand, the other in Luce’s - occasionally commenting on its smell but already reveling in the excitement of dissecting it. All of this had been Angelo’s idea, because Luce was a _good kid_. They had both been honest up to that moment, it was _papà_  telling them to speak the truth at all times, after all. An honesty they didn’t take into account when calculating the consequences of their grotesque little game. And although ripping those rigid, fleshy limbs off in the bushes of their garden had been a delight for their immature selves, Testa’s reprimands afterwards definitely weren’t. It was then that Angelo spat it out; the first lie of his life he can think of. It all came out in one go, how it was all Luce’s fault and he hadn’t even been there. He knew he could get away with it; his brother had always been the more curious and adventurous one among the two. Luce started crying and overreacting in the end, and he ended up with a spanking; Angelo found out that he was a good liar.

A few hours later he went back to the garden to take a look at the dead bird one more time. Its guts had been generously spilled out by the two kids, and now it was a haven of maggots and various insects, which was both disgusting and intriguing to a little boy like him. Angelo picked up a tree branch and took a light poke, seeing how the semi-rotten meat enveloped the end and the new inhabitants of this temple of flesh kept crawling on it without caring much. Angelo had a strange thought in that moment, the phrase barely crossing his mind. _He might have lied, but the corpse doesn’t_. That’s when he recalls regret kicking in; the evidence was there, an ugly reminder of his ugly act. _He_  knew the truth, even if no one else did, and it haunted him for days.

Little did he know how complicated lies really were. It wasn’t the seven years out of Lawless that were hard on him - surviving on pickpocketing made his skills ruthless and refined, while the moral considerations disappeared little by little until there were none left. Angelo could lie to other people just fine; he didn’t care about them or their lives anyway. He could’ve killed to survive, if the case presented itself; in fact, the plans of revenge were already boiling in his brain, along with violent fantasies about doing to the Vanettis whatever Luce and him did to that bird a long time ago. The first days after the letter went smoothly as well- And then there was an error in the system. An error called Nero.

Because he made Angelo wonder what, when and to whom he was lying. Because his reaction to the kisses pressed all over his skin and Nero’s dazed and hopeful expression might have been a lie he was telling with his words, his glances and his gestures, the way he approached Vanetti’s son with an air of seduction around him might have all been fake - but the way his body trembled and flushed and burned wasn’t. The slight rush he got every time his eyes recognized those now familiar features wasn’t. It was _evidence_ , cold, hard facts that reminded him of the truth concealed under the self-deception he had inadvertently started indulging in, just like the maggot-covered dead bird had been. Nero once said to him, when he was still acting coy: _You can lie to yourself, but don’t lie to me_. And although the context was different and he hadn’t the slightest clue about who his protegé was at the time, it struck a chord within Angelo. He kissed Nero on the lips then, fervently and passionately like he never had before; even startling the other. He had the neediness of a child who had been caught red-handed and was now running to his mother’s skirt to repent for his sins. Nero was in utter shock but happy when he pulled away. That night, they did something that resembled making love or at least was very close to it. And Angelo knew at least _that_ , of all things, wasn’t a lie. His conscience could rest. 


	2. "You deserve better than me"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This might be a tiny bit too meta and self-indulgent.

Glass after glass, cigar after cigar, Nero starts figuring it out. Well, not really; let’s say his thoughts have an outline now, a matter to work it. He just needs to mold it, refine the details - here, in this bar, hunched over the counter. His hand is tightly seized around the short and wide container of his _Lawless Heaven_ , or at least a cheap knockoff of the drink he would recognize anywhere. He moves the glass a little, and the ice tinkles against its walls. It then stays afloat as the motion gradually stops, peaceful again. They put ice in the booze now, he ponders. Even in places such as this. The world truly is going mad.

“Fellow.” There’s a hand tapping his shoulder and he almost reaches for a gun, but the comforting unfamiliarity of the stranger’s features and the lack of a police uniform prompt him not to.

“Do we know each other?” It’s pretty rude for a question of mere formality, Nero realizes after saying it.

“Do any two people really know each other?” He drags the barstool a little and sits down besides the other.

He’s not philosophical, he’s drunk. Or maybe both, but Nero knows enough about alcohol to dismiss whatever depth he’s seeing in those words. Still, he feels the need to respond, what does he care anyway. The stranger orders ‘the cheapest thing they have’ and then turns back to the Vanetti with a stuporous but questioning air.

“I guess I have someone I know.” Nero refuses to look him in the eye, what he brought up is too private to even share his glance as he thinks of it.

“Maybe you-” the man hiccups in a way that is so stereotypical of a drunkard that it makes the other cringe despite his own drinking habits “-Maybe you think you know 'em. But you don’t. Can never be sure.”

Nero chuckles at the irony.

“No, I’m pretty sure. I’m in love.” This is when he turns to the other man and looks into those dark, mundane orbs. 

“Only idiots say that.”

It’s time to leave, the Vanetti catches a glimpse of a young man standing in the doorway, a dirty coat around his narrow shoulders and a newsboy cap on his head. He gestures to leave. Nero abandons his short-term companion without even saying goodbye and eventually walks out the door. 

The streets are haunted in Lawless. Barely anyone is outside, the police patrols walk around alert but without much dedication. It’s enough to have pickpockets cower in fear, but not to make it look like there’s any life in this city at all. Nero can’t talk now, so he immerses himself in his own thoughts once again. He feels amber orbs on him - wherever he goes and whatever he does at this point, in fact. But it reassures him. He’s being watched over and so he can make plans now, he can construct a prediction of the future and make it come true. What a terrible night it is, it’s even slightly rainy. Nero wishes he also had a hat and maybe a less godawful mood.

“Only idiots say that, because I am one. I’m an idiot.” His voice is low, the laughter afterwards even lower. He receives no answer and takes the silence as consensus.

“You know,” he continues, “I used to think it was a punishment for me that I felt this way. About you, I mean. A bloody curse that of all people I had to fall for a man, and a man like you, nonetheless. Bizarre.”

Nero knows he’s being ridiculed for his intoxication right now by the immense silence that befalls upon him, and still, it’s heavy somehow. Too much gloom perhaps for him to lighten it up; he shakes his head. That guy had always been this way, his aura darker than a piece of coal. He starts talking again, it’s a bit desperate-sounding this time.

“But it was bullshit, I reckon. Look at me and what a wreck I am. You deserve better than me. Perhaps…” He pauses. “Perhaps someone who doesn’t listen when you suggest the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

He chuckles very loudly this time, so much so that a cop almost decides to talk to him, but then gives up as the _delinquent_ ’s state becomes obvious. The Vanetti, in the meanwhile, can’t keep himself from bending into two from laughter. A few tears spill out, too much amusement. Amusement or _something else_ , it doesn’t really matter anyway.

Sobering up is good for musing. Nero’s head clears out, the possible routes narrow down. It’s like playing chess and deciding the moves of your last pieces; the pawns on his side have definitely been taken out, the royalties as well; now he only has a slow and clumsy king. Thank god this isn’t chess, thank god he’s free in the real world, thank god he can play outside the board and he has already figured out how. 

Lawless surely looks nice from the bridge despite the clouds obfuscating the sky. At least there’s a nice sight, it almost distracts Nero from what has been bugging him for the past minutes, namely the words of an unknown and irrelevant person at that goddamned bar. That 'Maybe you think you know them, but you don’t’ rubs him the wrong way and he needs to physically restrain the urge to punch the metal railing and break a knuckle. No, no, look at the view instead, he tells himself as his heartbeats can’t seem to get slower. The city, the river, the island, the river again, and the other part of the city, such symmetry. 

Nero turns right and the only one on the bridge besides him is the kid, with his silent nods and amber eyes, his cynicism capable of ruining the atmosphere so often, his annoyed expression. He almost gets punched in the face, but Nero is content with clenching his fists as tight as possible.

“Just tell me,” He curses his voice for trembling. “Tell me why this all had to happen. Do you have any idea what I’m going through? What you have made me do?!”

The other shrugs with ruthless disinterest at how Nero is practically screaming at him with so much force that it makes him pant after he’s done. Then the Vanetti tosses out a few more insults, he curses, calls him a devil and inhumane, but the more air his lungs pump out, the fainter and duller it sounds to even himself. He collapses on the concrete, sobbing like a child, which is what he feels he is in this moment. A stupid child, too. The young man who was previously standing a few feet from him steps closer. He doesn’t reach out to comfort, but he’s right in front of him. 

Nero is the one to stretch out a hand. Maybe if he imagines hard enough, the air he’s grasping feels a little warmer among his fingers, almost akin to solid substance. It’s not simple, but letting his grip loose could make it feel like he’s holding _something_ , so he relaxes his muscles.

“You’ve really made it. Flawless.” He smiles bitterly as he stands up. “Found a way to kill me anyway. I will congratulate you for your revenge when I see you, Angelo.” The joke, the one he’s now so pleased with, is the signature to the letter. A twenty-one year long letter.

The rain ceases, the temperature rises a little. There’s a comfortable, soft breeze; perfect weather. The railing isn’t too high.


	3. "Please, don't cry"

Smiles are infrequent and subtle. They are a mere hint of the corner of Avilio's mouth curling up, they last short and are hard to spot. Perhaps there lies their value, in this almost annoying rarity. They look aesthetically pleasing on him - his face is already handsome on its own - and there's a childishness in them that would be harder to spot in his usual frown. Smiles are also a fierce grin, a show of aggressiveness on Nero's part, a social display of dominance. It's like declaring superiority and unbreakable strength. There's not much honesty in them, they serve a purpose rather than being an expression of his feelings. For Avilio, the smiles are not part of the facade, but rather him dropping it. Neither of the two are smiles of happiness, it's amusement at best. In even rarer moments, the two might even smile at each other. On the rooftop after succeeding with the plan to catch Don Orco - maybe then they coordinated the gesture. They made jokes like there was nothing grim or heavy about life, both trying to look like something different than they really were, in a forced atmosphere of what was formal at the moment, and that would be jest. Or in the garden, during the police patrols and Nero's stressful nights; Avilio then asked, Wanna go for a drive? and they even pushed out a laughter. There's an underlying sadness in those two very different smiles. Nero can see it behind the performance while Avilio lives in it every day.

Tears are a breaking point. They make the skin go damp and red, they make the nose drip, they render a person ugly. Nero cries more often than he would like to; they're mostly tears of anger, an outward sign of how much he's exploding and combusting inside in the wild flurry of his emotions. Sometimes they are sad, like they were at Vanno's funeral, and they are an open wound he doesn't want to show to anyone, especially not to Avilio - which is why he had asked him to leave. Unlike Nero, the latter has an almost flawless control over crying, so naturally, he doesn't. Cold stoicism is perhaps what characterizes him the most, he's not a man made for tears. The little acceptance and familiarity Nero has for his own crying - he doesn't have that either. One could say he's not used to it, and thus, when slammed against a tree in the middle of unbearable tension, the most vulnerable part of him resurfaces without any boundaries. As good-looking as he is normally, as ugly of a crier he becomes. Every muscle in his face seems to tense up after his scream of Why didn't you kill me seven years ago? and the result is an abhorrent facial expression with a mixture of thousands of emotions pushed in the back of his mind for years. Nero lets him go and looks away, embarrassed by the sight. Perhaps that's why he follows up with a quiet, almost meek request, Please, don't cry. Because he can't bear to see that face? Or Avilio hurting? The roughness with which he kisses his lips doesn't clear up the matter; but at least it's truthful.


End file.
